More than 8,600 trees planted by community forestry team

Volunteers donated their time over the last tree planting season to help Sheffield City Council’s community forestry team plant more than 8,600 trees in 40 locations.

In the 2016-17 planting season, which ran from October 2016 to March 2017, a total of 8,658 trees were planted, including heavy standards, whips, and fruit trees.

The community forestry team has been planting trees across Sheffield for more than 12 years.

Councillor Mary Lea, cabinet member for culture, parks and leisure at Sheffield City Council, added: “I’m proud that we are creating the next generation of woodlands and community gardens for future generations of Sheffielders to enjoy.

“This is especially important at a time when we are increasingly cementing our reputation as the UK’s Outdoor City and demonstrating that Sheffield is a city where people of all ages, in all of our diverse communities, can enjoy an array of fabulous green open spaces.

“We are also calling for people who think their local estate needs some trees to get in touch. Simply call our Parks and Countryside service on 0114 250050 if you want to suggest where next year’s plantings should take place.”

One of the aims of the team is to involve the local community in actively helping replace and expand their local tree coverage, with an emphasis on environmental education within schools, colleges, and community groups.

The team also helps supports healthy eating policies by planting fruit trees in public spaces and community gardens on housing land across the city.

Community forestry staff have been working with numerous tenants and residents associations across Sheffield to help plant fruit trees in their local areas, to provide a source of free, seasonal, fresh fruit for the local community. These have included plantings in areas such as Cairns Road, Crosspool; on the Landsdowne Estate on the edge of Broomhall and in Donovan Road, Southey Green.

This year’s achievements also included creating three new urban woodlands in the south-east of the city; at Kenninghall Bank, Fox Lane Recreation Ground and at Pipworth Recreation Ground. Trees planted there included a mix of native woodland species such as English Oak, Hazel, Field Maple, Spindle, Hawthorn and Blackthorn.

In Darnall, a mix of oak, lime, silver birch, Turkish hazel and amalanchier trees were planted at Ouseburn Road Open Space, as part of a wider project also including wildflower and bulb planting, new seating, fencing, and the provision of goal ends and synthetic surfacing to provide a kick-about area for football.

In Sharrow, trees were planted in partnership with trading co-operative Regather, while in Beighton, new trees were planted on a spot of green space between Rosemary Road and Cairns Road with help from Reignhead Primary School pupils.

A pear tree was also planted at Fox Hill Primary School, where the nursery class are helping to look after the tree and watch the pears develop. There are plans to plant more trees in the grounds of the school, which is new and currently has mainly hard landscaping.

The aim of the community forestry team is to plant around 7,000 new trees each year in communities across Sheffield.

This is in addition to Streets Ahead’s tree replacement scheme on the city’s highways. As well as the replacement trees, 600 additional street trees will be planted over the duration of the Streets Ahead contract.